Halloween is based on the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was the division of the year between the lighter half (summer) and...

Americans tend to idealize rugged individualism but the separate self is really an illusion. From before we are born until our last...

The Peace of Wild Thing When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my...

The frontal cortex is the most evolved part of the brain. It is where we reason, plan, and are self-aware. When scientists examined the...

Our life here on earth begins with our first breath and ends with the last. All the days in between are a series of one breath after...

Some people when they see a tree, see a tree. Some people when they see a tree, come to life. Some people when they see a tree, see a...

This week, I turn to the tradition of the Jewish faith. Last Friday at sundown was the beginning of the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah and...

The eighteenth-century Hasidic Rabbi Hayim Heikel of Amdur says: When you awake in the morning immediately remember that the blessed...

In The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben writes there is no such thing as an individual tree but through its roots and branches it is...

A zillion studies show the depth and breadth of our relationships determine our ultimate happiness. Want to improve life on all fronts?...

For many years, I believed life was something I possessed. From the first breath until the last, my purpose was to discover my mission...

I was once a Franciscan friar but not a monk. Friars live and serve out in the world. Monks live, work and pray in a monastery. They take...

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an...

When Patrick and I married 25 years ago, we vowed to make our home a place of love and welcome. We try to keep that promise. Our dining...

A joy shared is a joy doubled and a burden shared is a burden halved. When I was a novice with the Franciscans, Fr. James Cox, an elderly...

It is no secret that the beach is my happy place. Maybe because some part of my subconscious remembers the first 9 months of life in my...

Humans survived thanks to a negativity bias. This way of thinking helped our ancestors avoid being eaten by a lion, but today it can trap...

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer...

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung...

Body like the mountain, Heart like the ocean, Mind like the sky. Master Dogen zenmasterdogen.com Let your mind be like the sky. The same...